Lost Moments
by FreckledWriter
Summary: What if Tom's spirits had been buoyed by the young woman he rescued at the beginning of season 2? What if she had rescued him right back? What moments did we, and the 2nd Mass, miss?
1. Chapter 1 Screams

_Author Note_: I'm putting a twist on what could have been an even more complicated story line for Tom. What if the girl he rescued had not been bitter? What if she had been the thing that reignited Tom's hope and belief that humans could win? Two months is a long time to travel with someone and not get to know them. I'm making her 20 years old in this story. This first chapter is a little longer than the others will be because I have to explain where I am taking this storyline.

Tom needs more love stories!

**Chapter 1 **_**Screams**_

The thought of taking care of someone on his way back to his boys had not entered his mind. Tom knew taking on someone else's problems would only hinder him and slow him down. But when he heard the screams, he reacted before his brain could stop him. Seeing that there was one woman already down told him the situation was perilous.

He couldn't tell what the girl was saying but the man was clearly yelling "Quit struggling, if you don't let go of that bag I'll shoot you." The girl who was struggling with the large hairy man had no one to help her. Tom's morals were about to put him in a hot spot once again. Tom got the jump on him and after a short struggle managed to get the pistol he had been using to threatening the girl. "If I see you again I'll use this!" Tom really didn't like killing people, but some people could not be trusted. All they had in this new world was the trust that the person beside them would not leave them high and dry while your back was turned. Tom had lost all patience and apathy for anyone who would steal or bully a weaker person. Luckily the man ran away.

Tom checked the pistol while catching his breath. The girl, who was maybe not as young as Tom had first surmised, was clutching the yellow duffle bag that the man had wanted. Tom checked the gun and found it had two unspent bullets in it. He told the girl his name was Tom and that he wasn't going to hurt her. He told her that he wanted to look at her bike. As he walked towards it, she panicked and screamed at him that he couldn't have it. He took a step back and thought about the situation that he was in.

"I've been walking for weeks. I'm going to Boston. Would you want to ride in that direction?" He asked hopefully.

The girl thought for a moment then glanced at the woman lying off to the side. "Okay, I'll go towards Boston. We can take the bike, but only if we don't leave her like that."

Tom had dug the first foot of the grave when the girl, whose face was a mixture of dirt and tears, told him the woman was her mother. "I had thought as much." That was all that was said until the digging was done. She had bright red hair that fell about her face in tight curls. When the digging was done Tom looked for a sheet to wrap her mother in but couldn't find anything. She looked around and found some flowers growing nearby in a forgotten flowerbed. They were tall with a few blooms growing on them.

The young lady produced a large knife from a pocket of her jean jacket and cut the flowers down. She was wearing a white peasant blouse under the jacket and a black beanie hat. She put the bouquet on her mother's face and then picked up the shovel and began burying her mother. Tom stepped to her side quickly and said "You don't have to do that, I'll do it."

"No. She was my mother. I'll bury her." The girl slowly scooped the disturbed earth back into the hole until her mother was completely buried. She sat down next to the grave and began talking. "It's for the best really. She had fibromyalgia. Her back and legs were hurting her so bad she could barely walk. We were traveling with some people from our town and I asked them to stop so that I could find a something for her to ride on. They said no and kept going. So it's just been me and her for about a month. I found the bike the day they abandoned us. I think the noise of it is how that guy found us. He wanted our food."

They didn't talk much after that. Tom got the bike running and she reluctantly climbed up behind him. They rode for about a mile before Tom saw a bike shop. He found the parts he needed to get the bike running right. Neither of them felt like sleeping the first night so they traveled until noon the next day before they stopped and sheltered under a bridge. They lay on the embankment about five feet from each other, in the shade.

When Tom woke up she was sitting up and staring at him. It was almost dark. "You never told me your name." Tom said, running his heads through his hair and shaking himself fully awake.

"Callie. What's yours, Tom?"

"Yeah. I have three sons, my oldest is 17. How old are you?"

"I'm 20. How old are your others?"

"14 and 9. I'm worried about them. They're with good people but I wish they were with me. I know they'll be near Boston. I think I can make it there before winter."

"I'm sure we can. Are the people they're with all as nice as you?"

Tom smiled. "Define nice. I almost shot that man. I steal from every home and store I come across."

Callie shook her head "no". "I don't think it's considered stealing anymore. You make sure the homes are abandoned right? You have to take what you can find or starve. That man would have stole from me. At least all he wanted was my food. I've come across several others that... wanted me. For some reason they're always surprised to see me armed."

"Do you mean the knife? You really need a sidearm like a glock." Tom stood and stretched.

Callie shrugged, "I think this is a .38 special. It must be special because I can't find any bullets for it. I've held on to it because it's the only gun I've got." She slowly pulled a small handgun from her other coat pocket.

"Let me see it. I don't have any ammo on me, but we can look." Tom held out his hand. Callie reluctantly shuffled toward him and handed him the gun. Tom gave her a smile and looked at the gun.

"Yeah it's a .38 if we can break open the safes of the next few places we come to, I bet we can find ammo that will work with it."


	2. Trust in the Darkness

_Author Note_: I'm putting a twist on what could have been an even more complicated story line for Tom. What if the girl he rescued had not been bitter? What if she had been the thing that reignited Tom's hope and belief that humans could win? Two months is a long time to travel with someone and not get to know them. I'm making her 20 years old in this story.

Callie remained standoffish. It was understandable. She was a modest five three which made his six foot height feel towering. She has been visibly upset after the death of her mother. She was a trooper though. They had been traveling together for a week. Callie had actually given Tom a laugh this afternoon. He had made a Napoleon joke after she ran the bike through a large puddle of water and she had liked it.

Now they came to an abandoned stretch of suburban homes and decided on the blue house because they both liked blue. None of its doors had been kicked in so they could feel a little better about going to sleep. Callie was usually very nervous when bed time came and would toss and turn and roll for a good hour before calming down enough to fall into welcoming arms of sleep. But tonight she fell asleep within minutes. Tom took that as a sign that she was finally starting to trust him. The first three days they had rode together she had been weary of leaving him with the bike, as if she was afraid he would drive off and leave her like the others had done. As he lay on the bed in the other room listening to her breathe he realized he had started trusting her too. She was old enough and smart enough to give him trouble if she wanted too, she could even try to kill him, but she had been too worried about him trying something. That most likely meant that she was a good person who, after being taken advantage of, was weary of it happening again. Tom was pretty sure that he had nothing to fear from Callie.

The next morning she didn't wake up until after him and he let her sleep until she was ready to wake up. Usually he woke her and pushed her to get going. As if waiting mere seconds to chew their food might make a huge difference in how long it would take them to travel the hundreds of miles that they had ahead of them.

She went through her bag one more time to make sure that she had not missed any food. Nope, they had eaten it all. "We have to take some time to stock up on food. I'll travel as many miles as you want in a single day, as _long _as I have something to eat."

"You're right. We'll go through these houses and see what we can find. It's amazing what people left in their homes."

They had found ammo for her sidearm in the office safe of a car dealership. They had also found a bottle of scotch. Callie turned up her nose but Tom made her pack it in her bag anyway. Liquor could be used to clean cuts, not just get drunk. Although getting drunk and forgetting about how screwed they were was tempting.

Tom watched as Callie tugged on her biker boots, which were in very good shape. "Those are nice boots. How have you kept them so clean?"

Callie hesitated. "I got them when I got the bike."

"You found a shop with shoes still in it?"

Callie frowned and paused before answering. "No. I stole the boots and the bike out of a backyard. Everyone in the house was drunk and didn't even know I was there. I think they had been partying because there were clothes and shoes spread out all over the yard. They didn't look like nice people so I walked the bike downhill- the backyard sloped- and by the time I started it they couldn't get up fast enough to catch me. I've been riding the bike ever since."

Tom nodded. "That's when you were trying to take care of your mom?" Callie nodded.

When she stared off into space like that he knew that she was done talking for a little while. She was a very nice young lady, but she had had it rough in the past month. She still had morals and was trying very hard to stick to them in a world where morals were decaying like the abandoned houses. Her seriousness made her appear older than she was. Not even old enough to drink and yet she was carrying a gun and knife every day for survival. She had been taking care of her mom instead of shrinking back in fear and asking that someone take care of _her_. There were people in their 30's and 40's that traveled with the 2nd Mass that just sat in the gym, as if fear had a physical grip on them and they couldn't move. Tom tried not to be angry with them. Those people had seen horrible things, and had lost the people that they loved. If they had been shocked into stillness it was understandable. It was Tom's job to take care of them until they snapped out of it. But if he could be honest, it was nice to not have people like that around right now. Callie was able-bodied and able to keep up with him physically was well as mentally. If he would have had his boys with him, he might have been able to have fun.

But since they were God knows where, in God knows what shape, he couldn't have fun. He could barely think happy thoughts. He was thinking about all of this as they were walking out of the blue house. Callie was stepping out of the front door when suddenly she lunged backward, shutting the door in the same motion, and held up her hand for silence. She grabbed him by his unbuttoned jacket and threw him up against the living room wall. She mouthed the word "spiders" then "skitters" remembering what it was he called them. He nodded and softly pulled her hands off of his jacket and reached for the handgun in the pocket of his coat. Callie grabbed his hand and shook her head then silently said "three." He had found bullets for his gun but only ten and that was not a good number of bullets when facing three skitters.

Tom had thought that he would be taking care of _her_ when he decided to bring this ragged girl with him to Boston, but he realized now, that they had been taking care of each other. _I'll be damned if I'm going to let them kill us now_ he thought. He pushed Callie backwards and nodded toward the back door. Callie turned around searching for what he was nodding at but it only took a second for her to realize what he meant and she turned and walked on cat feet toward the other door. A week and already they didn't need a lot of words to understand each other.

Callie crept to the door and looked out of the windows. As she was peering out of the last one Tom turned the doorknob so slowly his hands almost ached. He made sure not to let go of the knob once the door was opened, but slowly twisted the knob back around so there would be no noise. Then he reached for Callie's hand and drug her toward the back fence as quietly as possibly. Whoever had lived in the house didn't have any children and so there was nothing to dodge in the back yard. They made it to the fence. Tom held out his hands to boost Callie over the fence. She gestured in the direction of the blue house and mouthed "What about the bike?!"

Tom shook his head and set his jaw. Callie had already learned that there was no arguing with a Mason when he thought he had figured out the best course of action, so she stepped into his hand and slung herself over the fence. They slunk threw the yards like a lioness slinks when stalking an antelope, but it never left their minds that they were the hunted. They waited until they were three houses away before they stopped to have a conversation.

"I don't want to walk to Boston! I'll admit that I've nowhere to go, so I might as well go with you, but I am not _walking_ there!" Callie was close enough that Tom could almost count the freckles that lay across her nose, but there was no time for that.

"Okay. Let's just sit still for 20 minutes then we'll go back. That will give them enough time to leave the area and we can start the bike without being heard."

He sat there staring into her eyes to reassure her. She gave him a smile, like she was trying to reassure _him_. Which made him smile. He had lucked into a good partner when he rescued her from that guy a week ago. There couldn't be many women left in The States. Not after all of the bombings. This is why he had encouraged rather than discourage Hal when Hal had started pursuing Maggie. There weren't very many unmarried women of acceptable age around. Wait! Where had this line of thinking come from? Anne was surely waiting for him in Boston. He needed to stop this and focus on getting back to her and the boys.


End file.
